PayNearMe Takes Cash Payments System Mobile. PayNearMe, an alternative payments product that provides a compelling way for the ‘unbanked’ to use cash payments for online goods, is debuting its first mobile integration today.
As you may know, the term “unbanked” refers to consumers who don’t have traditional bank accounts or cannot qualify for credit cards. PayNearMe allows people who don’t have or don’t want to use credit or debit cards to purchase products, pay for bills and more with cash at thousands of 7-Eleven stores in the continental U.S. Here’s how PayNearMe works. With participating partners, e-commerce or merchant sites, consumers can use the PayNearMe option to pay for purchases or debts owed. You simply place your order with PayNearMe and print out the given receipt. Shared Online Paywall Service Piano Media Secures Euro 2 million from 3TS. Editor’s Note: This post is by our regular contributor Natasha Starkell, the CEO of GoalEurope, the outsourcing advisory firm and a publication about outsourcing, innovation and startups in Central and Eastern Europe.
Twitter @NatashaStarkell. Gplus.to/natashastarkell. Slovak startup Piano Media, which has challenged the online media industry with an aggregated paywall concept, has raised €2 million from 3TS, one of the leading private equity funds in Central and Eastern Europe. Intuit Acquires Mobile Payments Company AisleBuyer, Will Integrate Into GoPayment, POS Solutions.
AisleBuyer, makers of a virtual shopping assistant app that lets in-store customers bypass checkout lines by paying directly on their mobile phone, has been acquired by Intuit. The Boston-based startup will be joining Intuit’s payments team, where their technology will be used to transition Intuit’s existing point-of-sale solutions as well as Intuit’s Square competitor GoPayment to the cloud. The solution will also be opened up to Intuit’s own developers as well as third-party developers, according to the company. The announcement, which was rumored earlier this week, was confirmed by AisleBuyer CEO Andrew Paradise on the company’s blog. GoPago’s line-skipping mobile payment system launches in San Francisco. As we’ve mentioned before, the key to mobile payments isn’t in providing an alternative to a credit card swipe or a cash transaction.
It’s in providing additional value that you can’t get right now from existing payments. That’s what makes GoPago an interesting player to watch in what is fast becoming a very crowded mobile payment market. The company is launching its cloud-based mobile payment system in San Francisco on Tuesday, the start of a nationwide rollout that will spread to Dallas, Chicago and New York City later this year. The service, which previously had a small pilot in Mountain View, Calif., and Las Vegas, allows consumers to order and pay ahead from their mobile app and essentially skip the line at all kinds of businesses, from restaurants and hair salons to dry cleaners and coffee shops. PayPal Debuts Tiered Suite Of Online, Offline And Mobile Payments Options For Small Businesses. As we heard over the past few months, PayPal is ramping up its payments options for large and small merchants.
The payments giant debuted an in-store payments platform for large retailers; PayPal Here, a card swiper that attaches to a mobile phone for small businesses; and hinted at a brand new PayPal wallet. Royal Canadian Mint’s “MintChip” Looks To Officially Digitize Cash. Moving everyday transactions into the digital realm seems an inevitability, but as yet there have been no breakout successes.
Sure, there are fringe efforts like Square (which relies on existing card and bank infrastructure) and Google Wallet (which is a bit early to the NFC party), but there’s nothing that the average consumer would see and think “yes, that is as simple as handing the merchant a five-dollar bill.” The Royal Canadian Mint is hoping to create such a system: a multi-platform, simple, and secure alternative to cash. Others around the net have likened it to Bitcoin, but that’s really an inapt comparison. MintChip isn’t a virtual currency, it’s a virtual wallet, something which has been tried before.
But, naturally enough, they hope to succeed where others have failed. Briefly, it must be explained why MintChip is nothing like Bitcoin. It’s an admirable effort and the Mint should be praised for the project, but this is likely to end up a dead end. Google Buys TxVia, Banks On Better Payment Technology (And 100M Customers) For Google Wallet. Google has had a few teething problems with its ambitious mobile payments service Google Wallet, but it is also putting some money down to get it on the right track.
Today the company announced that it would buy TxVia, a mobile payments technology company, for an undisclosed amount. Osama Bedier, VP of Wallet and Payments at Google, says in a blog post that the acquisition will be used to “complement” the work already done on Google Wallet, Google’s service that enables payments, discounts and loyalty points — and the ability to make those transactions mobile using selected NFC handsets. The news comes at the same time that Google Wallet is losing some of its key people, including Rob von Behren, one of the founding engineers, who has now joined mobile payments startup Square; and other competitors like PayPal continue to expand their own mobile payments operations.
As Google, Isis lock horns, U.S. trails in NFC phone shipments — Mobile Technology News. Card Case Adds More Merchant Discovery, Social Features To iOS And Android; Becomes ‘Pay With Square’ Square’s consumer-focused loyalty and mobile payments app Card Case, which debuted in 2011, has been pushing the envelope when it comes to the future of payments, allowing for hands-free, location-based payments, emailed receipts and more.
And merchants have quietly been adopting Card Case in droves. Back in November, Square told us that 20,000 merchants had signed up for Card Case, which doubled to over 40,000 businesses in February, and is now at 75,000 businesses using the application. And today, Square is announcing a major update to Card Case, adding additional social and merchant discovery features to both the iOS and Android app as well as renaming the app “Pay With Square.” For those of you who are unfamiliar, Pay With Square’s mobile app for iOS and Android allows you to fill the app with ‘cards’ of all the merchants they visit and buy from who accept Square. BilltoMobile Partners With Discover On Mobile Payments Push. On the heels of mobile payments service BilltoMobile’s launch of a one-click checkout solution for the mobile web, the company is today announcing a partnership with Discover.
Through the agreement, Discover’s e-commerce merchants will now be able to offer carrier billing as a possible payment option at checkout. For background, BilltoMobile, which already has relationships with all four major carriers in the U.S. (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile), allows consumers to use their mobile phone number as their payment option at checkout. This is useful in targeting those who aren’t comfortable with entering their credit card info online, as well as those who simply don’t want to deal with the hassle of having to type in the info on the small keyboard of their mobile phone.
Prior to the launch of the newer one-click system at the beginning of the year, the process involved was a little more cumbersome. Bump Pay Lets You PayPal Someone Quick, But Only In-Person. Now it’s as easy as a fist-pound to pay a friend back for dinner, drinks, or a cab.
Bump, the popular contact sharing app developer, today releases a new standalone iOS app called Bump Pay that lets you transfer money via PayPal to anyone in arm’s reach. But that’s also Bump Pay’s biggest limitation. Unlike Venmo where you send money to any phone number near or far, Bump Pay only works in-person. Mobile Banking Consolidation: Monitise Buys Clairmail For $173 Million. One more sign of the mobile money space continuing to grow up: some significant consolidation underway.
Today, the UK-based mobile banking specialists Monitise announced that it is buying Clairmail, a U.S. -based competitor, for $173 million, as part of its global expansion. The combined group says it will serve 13 million customers world-wide processing some $10 billion of payments weekly, and will give Monitise a much bigger and direct presence in the North American market: one-third of the top 50 U.S. financial institutions are now clients of the group. Monitise and Clairmail both focus on an “infrastructure” play around mobile banking and mobile payments.
Their main business is in providing the backend to let banks and other financial institutions offer mobile banking, payment and shopping services to its customers. He says that for now Monitise is not interested in acquiring those smaller companies: “We are not into the piloting and the bleeding edge stuff,” he says. Taking On Rival Jumio, Payments Startup Card.io Adds Web Support.
Card.io, the mobile payments startup which recently partnered with PayPal on the company’s new Square rival PayPal Here, has some big news: it’s no longer a “mobile” payments startup. That’s right – Card.io is now available for the web, too. With the launch of Card.io Webscan, as it’s being called, web developers can access the company’s card-reading technology which “sees” your credit or debit card when held up to a computer’s webcam.
The move puts Card.io in more direct competition with Jumio, a payments company which already offers both an online and mobile solution and that works in a similar fashion to Card.io. In terms of funding, however, Jumio is in the lead – the company raised $25.5 million of Series B funding in a round led by top VC firm Andreessen Horowitz this March, which puts it far ahead of Card.io, with its $1 million in seed investments. Western Union Gets Into Online Payments, Launches PayNearMe Competitor WU Pay. Money transfer service Western Union is launching a new online payments platform, called WU Pay, that allows consumers to pay for goods online by using your bank’s online bill pay service (similar to the way you pay a utility or credit card bill), or at a Western Union location in the U.S.
Eventbrite’s New iPad Credit Card Reader Allows Event Organizers To Collect Ticket Payments At The Door. Online ticketing platform Eventbrite is making a big push towards reaching $1 billion in gross ticket sales in 2012; after doubling both the number of events on platform in 2011 (458,207 events in 2011) and tickets sold last year (20,798,509 tickets sold in 2011). In 2011, the company sold $400 million worth of tickets, which is double the $207 million it did in 2010. To reach that $1 billion and expand sales, last year Eventbrite debuted the beginnings of the new Eventbrite Box Office. Traditionally, Eventbrite tickets are sold online, which means that people who decide to spontaneously show up at the door can’t use the platform.
In December, the company launched the Eventbrite ‘At the Door’ iPad app, and today the company is debuting the complimentary credit card reader to allow event organizers to collect ticket payments on the go. The reader itself makes collecting spontaneous payments on the go fairly easy. This could be a huge money-maker for Eventbrite. VeriFone’s Payments Gateway And Square Competitor Reaches $10B In Yearly U.S. Transaction Volume.
No Card Needed: PayPal Here’s Frictionless Payments Powered By Mobile Payment Startup Card.io. Which Mobile Payments Provider is Right for You? With more phones and more options opening every day for mobile and peer to peer payments, the waters are getting a bit muddied. At the request of some of TNW’s Twitter followers, we thought we’d put together a list of the leading options, including the pros and cons of each. Expect this post to be updated as the landscape changes. PayPal Redesigns How You Buy With Its "Digital Wallet" Your money is a mess. In principle, you've got this pot of it somewhere. L.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftechcrunch. Nokia Exits Mobile Payments Business With Shuttering Of Nokia Money.
Nokia is announcing today it plans to shut down its mobile payments service known as Nokia Money in India, as a part of a shift in strategy that will allow the company to more narrowly focus on its handset business and related location-based services offerings. Clover Raises $5.8M From Andreessen Horowitz; Launches As A One-Click Mobile Payments Platform. A new mobile payments startup is entering the market. Juniper: NFC Payments To Reach $74 Billion Worldwide By 2015. PayPal Set To Unveil Payments Platform For Small Businesses. Before SXSW Sunk Its Valuation, Loopt Location App Sells To Green Dot For $43.4 Million Cash. With a new class of passive location apps on the rise, failed geo-mobile apps of the past need to cut their losses, so Loopt today announced plans to sell to banking and payment solutions company Green Dot for $43.4 million. Green Dot hopes checkin functionality can help it attain and hold on to customers by expanding from prepaid cards into a mobile wallet.
How Green Dot Will Use Loopt To Go After Mobile Payments. Imagine you’re walking by your local cafe, and you get a notification on your phone that you’ll get a free bagel if you buy a cup of coffee. You walk inside, and make the purchase with your credit card — no need to take out your phone again. The bagel rings up as “free,” and you get a notification from your bank confirming you’ve received the discount. All of this payments and loyalty interchange can happen over the cloud. PayPal’s New Digital Wallet Will Offer Personalized Deals, Flexible Payment Spending, And More. Payments Company Jumio Raises $25.5M From Andreessen Horowitz; Will Hit $100M In 2012 Revenue. Disruptive mobile and online payments startup Jumio has raised $25.5 million in Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. The firm’s General Partner Scott Weiss has joined Jumio’s board of directors.
Jumio’s earlier investors include Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin Peng T. Ong, partner at GSR Ventures and founder of Match.com and Vivek Ranadivé, founder of TIBCO. Recurly : Subscription Billing Made Simple. Card.io - Scan and charge credit cards with your phone. Movilway Expands Mobile Payment Services To The Underbanked In Latin America [Video] Movilway, the company pioneering prepaid mobile payments in Central and South America, recently updated their arsenal of tools to include a new custom Android tablet Point Of Sale (POS) terminal as well as a new MoviPIN system for online purchases. Both systems — available at select locations — bring digital purchasing power to those without bank accounts or credit cards. “It’s a common problem in rural and remote areas of the world, where many people simply do not have access to bank accounts,” said Movilway strategist Daniela Morgenstern.
“How do you order and pay for online goods when you don’t have a credit card or a bank card?” To solve this problem, Movilway created their mobile wallet system last year and this year have added the tablet POS terminal so that rural shopkeepers have more tools at their fingertips. The new tablet, custom built at Foxconn, allows shop keepers to manage inventory, manage Movilway account “top ups” as well as run other Android apps that may be useful. Isis Reveals New POS Partnerships With Verifone, Ingenico And ViVOtech. DigiMo Cracks The Code: Mobile Payments With No Point Of Sale Changes. Mobile Payment Solution LevelUp Now Seeing $1M Per Month In Transactions; Launches API. Wanda to Bring Mobile Payments to Latin America. WePay Adds Customizable Invoicing To Simple Payments Platform. Visa Launches Mobile Payments Provisioning Service; Teams Up With Vodafone.
Facebook Mobile Operator Billing Opens App Economy To The Credit Card-less. Leveraging Zong, PayPal Gets Serious About Mobile Carrier Payments. Merchants Accepting Square’s Card Case Doubles In Four Months To 40,000. Mobile Payments Company GoPago Nabs Investment From JPMorgan Chase. Ahead Of Funding News, Boku Debuts NFC-Enabled Mobile Payments Platform For Carriers, Merchants And Consumers. To Modernize The Checkbook, Zipmark Launches Developer Platform For Mobile Payments. Braintree Extends Merchant Payments To Mobile Apps. Buck (Formerly Billing Revolution) Launches Single-Click Mobile Payments Service & New Partners. Gumroad Gets $1.1 Million From Chris Sacca, Max Levchin And Others To Turn Any Link Into A Payment System.
Dwolla Raises $5 Million Series B From Union Square Ventures & Others.